A cargo vessel carrying 2,950 million cubic feet of gas (mmcf) of liquefied natural gas (LNG) arrived at Chittagong Port on Thursday, aiming to ease the ongoing gas crisis in the capital.
The vessel anchored at the port around 7:30am and necessary formalities have already been completed in this regard, said Md Omar Faruque, secretary of the Chittagong port authority.
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On Wednesday, State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid assured people of resolving the gas crisis soon and informed about the arrival of the LNG-carrying cargo vessel in a status posted on his verified Facebook page.
“A sudden problem at the Bibiana gas field caused low pressure of gas in some parts of the country from the first day of Ramadan. An LNG-carrying cargo was arranged immediately to resolve the crisis,” Nasrul Hamid said in his post.
The state minister thanked the tireless work of experienced engineers to overcome this crisis. “The Bibiana gas field is currently producing 1,100 million cubic feet of gas,” he said.
After four days of disruption, the Chevron-operated Bibiyana gas field resumed full production on Thursday morning.
The country’s gas production drastically fell by about 450 mmcfd on Sunday, the very first day of Ramadan, following a technical fault developed in the Bibiyana gas field.
The Bibiyana gas field production capacity is 1,200 mmcfd.
The supply situation started improving from Monday afternoon as production resumed at one of the two affected process trains at the gas field.
Officials said the gas field process system noticed that sand was coming out from two production wells which forced the authorities concerned to halt the production of the wells.
The incident had a big impact on the overall gas production as many areas experienced disruptions following the fall in the pressure of gas supply as an outcome of the fault.
The major impact was on power generation as the state-owned Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) had to shut down a good number of power plants immediately which led to load shedding in different districts across the country.
